John Archibald Campbell

John Archibald Campbell (24 June 1811-12 March 1889) was an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court from 22 May 1853 to 30 April 1861, succeeding John McKinley and preceding David Davis. During the American Civil War, he also served as the Confederate Assistant Secretary of War.

Biography
John Archibald Campbell was born in Washington, Georgia in 1811, and he graduated from the University of Georgia at the age of 14 and became a lawyer at the age of 18, which required a special act of the state legislature. In 1830, he moved to Montgomery, Alabama, and he took part in the war against the Creeks in 1836, facilitating his entry into the state legislature as a Jacksonian Democrat. He soon became one of the most sought-after attorneys in Alabama, and, in 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Campbell to serve on the US Supreme Court following John McKinley's death. Campbell predictably sided with the slaveowner in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, and, when the American Civil War broke out, Campbell resigned from the Court and returned south. In 1865, he was one of three peace commissioners who met with President Abraham Lincoln and William H. Seward in the Hampton Roads Conference, a failed attempt to end the war. After the war's end, he was imprisoned at Fort Pulaski for six months, and he resumed a successful law practice in New Orleans, opposing Reconstruction. He died in 1889.